BespinarEkici, ASA 2008
WORKING CLASS WOMEN’S WORK EXPERIENCES IN MEXICO AND TURKEY: FAMILY,
LABOR MARKET AND THE STATE
F. Umut BEŞPINAR-EKİCİ, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin
1. INTRODUCTION
Working class women’s work experiences in different socio-cultural settings have become one of the important
themes in gender and work literature since the late 1980s (Beneria and Roldan, 1987; Gonzalez de la Rocha,
1988; Beneria, 1992; Moser, 1993; Perez-Aleman, 1992; Saraceno, 1992; Cerrutti, 1997; Salzinger, 2003;
White, 1994; Erman et al., 2002; Erman, 2001). Research done on working women’s work experiences mainly
focuses on the difficulties women face due to the changing of the structures of global economic labor market
and economic policies including labor rights in the developing countries. However, the effect of main social
institutions such as family and the state on working class women’s work experiences is usually overlooked.
In the literature on women’s labor force participation and work experiences, what is missing is the holistic
approach looking at the interaction between patriarchy and class and interaction between different institutions
such as family, labor market and the state in women’s working experiences. A holistic approach discussing the
interconnections between different institutions –the family, the labor market, and the state- can shed light on
women’s labor force participation and women’s work experiences in Mexico and Turkey. All these institutions
are interconnected and interpenetrated by other institutions; institutions such as the family, the work and the
state are organized according to the unwritten and written rules of gender ideology. Gender ideologies and
patriarchal practices founded in the family are reinforced by norms in education, the workplace, and the
policies. Gender ideology is neither universal in Mexico nor in Turkey. Women from different classes
experience, interpret, select, negotiate and resist the value systems of gender ideology according to their social
positions. Women’s life experiences result in their interaction with different facets of gender ideology, which
include eclectic and even contradictory values. Class and patriarchy are embedded in the political, legal,
economic and cultural institutions intertwining women’s acts in the employment market.
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